Stress and Trials (And John Got His License!)
I don't know how much longer I can stay on this seizure medication.
At first I just felt kind of "spacey", like my thoughts were floating "out there", a little disjointed and haphazard. It was difficult to focus, to concentrate on anything for very long, and it was hard to articulate what I wanted to say sometimes. I still feel that way, but I realize that it's more than that.
I feel disconnected on a deeper level. I feel like I've lost my grounding, my foundation that gives me support when life throws challenges my way. I can't roll with the punches right now, I get knocked out and I feel stunned and out for the count for way too long. I can't deal with the little setbacks that come my way.
I've always been a person who likes to know what to expect, and I don't like surprises. But now, any time I'm facing anything that is even the slightest out of the ordinary, I find myself plagued by the "what-ifs" and stressing about things way more than I ought to be. And then when something does happen that I'm not expecting, or didn't plan for, I'm still thrown into a panic and I don't know how to deal with it. I should probably check my blood pressure, because I'm sure it's higher than it ought to be.
On Wednesday, September 26th, Steven and I swapped cars. He took the van to work, and I kept Scottie for the day. I took Scottie for an emissions check, and then took Hannah to work, and then after school I accompanied John to the DMV to take the driving test for his license. I stressed about that test more than you can imagine, and I wasn't even the one taking it! First it was, which car should he take it in - the van because he was more familiar with it? But the tire pressure light is on, and one of the brake lights is out... What if they won't even let him take the test because they deem the car isn't safe? But Scottie is brand new and John doesn't have much practice driving it. The brakes are touchy. Does John know where all the controls are? (It's a Toyota, the van is a Toyota of the same year, the controls are almost identical.) Do we have the registration and proof of insurance for Scottie? (Yes) Maybe we should have let him drive the van after all. (Too late now, Steven already has it at work.) It was an incredible relief when John passed the test and got his driver's license. Of course John was calm and secure in the knowledge that he would pass all along.
When Steven borrowed the van, he noticed that the alignment on the van was off and the brakes seemed soft, so he made an appointment for me to take the van in for an alignment (free under lifetime warranty) on Tuesday, and asked them to look at the brakes as well. Accordingly, I dropped the car off at the car place at 7am, told them I needed the car to be done by 1pm (That would give me time to walk back to get it before Hannah needed to leave for work at 2), and walked the two miles home.
Around 9am, I got a phone call from the car place. The brakes master cylinder was leaking, and the brake pads and rotors were wearing unevenly. They would need to replace the entire brake system and it would cost us over $1300. There were other issues that needed to be dealt with, something about a bubble on the side of a tire and something to do with the power steering, but he said they weren't urgent. I reluctantly agreed to have the brake work done, and he said he'd call this afternoon when the car was ready.
Around 1pm, they hadn't called yet, so I called them to find out if the car was close to being ready yet. In the course of our phone conversation, I learned that 1) the car was not yet ready. 2) The car would not be ready for some time. 3) The replacing of the brake system was a 5-6 hour operation (he hadn't mentioned this when we had talked on the phone at 9, and 4) Apparently when he had said "I'll call you this afternoon when the car is ready" what he actually meant was "Even though we agreed I would have your car back by 1pm, that no longer applies and your transportation issues this afternoon are not my problem" and I hadn't understood. I confess I was not as calm and polite on the phone with him as I probably ought to have been.
Suddenly I felt faced with the issue of how Hannah was going to travel the six miles or so to work without a car, and at that moment, it was sprinkling outside on top of everything else! In the end, it stopped sprinkling, she rode a bike, she got a little lost and got a flat tire and arrived at work a little late, but she got to work in the end and it was all good. The car place called me at 2:30 to say the car was done and I could come pick it up. I walked the two miles back to get it, thankfully able to walk off some of my frustration with them before I got there, paid them for the work done, and returned home again. But the remainder of my day I felt drained, stressed, broken.
I feel like I lack the resilience that I used to have. I can't laugh things off, and I'm feeling strained and brittle a lot of the time. How much of this is due to the medication? Is there something else that is causing it? I wish I knew.
At first I just felt kind of "spacey", like my thoughts were floating "out there", a little disjointed and haphazard. It was difficult to focus, to concentrate on anything for very long, and it was hard to articulate what I wanted to say sometimes. I still feel that way, but I realize that it's more than that.
I feel disconnected on a deeper level. I feel like I've lost my grounding, my foundation that gives me support when life throws challenges my way. I can't roll with the punches right now, I get knocked out and I feel stunned and out for the count for way too long. I can't deal with the little setbacks that come my way.
I've always been a person who likes to know what to expect, and I don't like surprises. But now, any time I'm facing anything that is even the slightest out of the ordinary, I find myself plagued by the "what-ifs" and stressing about things way more than I ought to be. And then when something does happen that I'm not expecting, or didn't plan for, I'm still thrown into a panic and I don't know how to deal with it. I should probably check my blood pressure, because I'm sure it's higher than it ought to be.
____________________________________
On Wednesday, September 26th, Steven and I swapped cars. He took the van to work, and I kept Scottie for the day. I took Scottie for an emissions check, and then took Hannah to work, and then after school I accompanied John to the DMV to take the driving test for his license. I stressed about that test more than you can imagine, and I wasn't even the one taking it! First it was, which car should he take it in - the van because he was more familiar with it? But the tire pressure light is on, and one of the brake lights is out... What if they won't even let him take the test because they deem the car isn't safe? But Scottie is brand new and John doesn't have much practice driving it. The brakes are touchy. Does John know where all the controls are? (It's a Toyota, the van is a Toyota of the same year, the controls are almost identical.) Do we have the registration and proof of insurance for Scottie? (Yes) Maybe we should have let him drive the van after all. (Too late now, Steven already has it at work.) It was an incredible relief when John passed the test and got his driver's license. Of course John was calm and secure in the knowledge that he would pass all along.
____________________________________
When Steven borrowed the van, he noticed that the alignment on the van was off and the brakes seemed soft, so he made an appointment for me to take the van in for an alignment (free under lifetime warranty) on Tuesday, and asked them to look at the brakes as well. Accordingly, I dropped the car off at the car place at 7am, told them I needed the car to be done by 1pm (That would give me time to walk back to get it before Hannah needed to leave for work at 2), and walked the two miles home.
Around 9am, I got a phone call from the car place. The brakes master cylinder was leaking, and the brake pads and rotors were wearing unevenly. They would need to replace the entire brake system and it would cost us over $1300. There were other issues that needed to be dealt with, something about a bubble on the side of a tire and something to do with the power steering, but he said they weren't urgent. I reluctantly agreed to have the brake work done, and he said he'd call this afternoon when the car was ready.
Around 1pm, they hadn't called yet, so I called them to find out if the car was close to being ready yet. In the course of our phone conversation, I learned that 1) the car was not yet ready. 2) The car would not be ready for some time. 3) The replacing of the brake system was a 5-6 hour operation (he hadn't mentioned this when we had talked on the phone at 9, and 4) Apparently when he had said "I'll call you this afternoon when the car is ready" what he actually meant was "Even though we agreed I would have your car back by 1pm, that no longer applies and your transportation issues this afternoon are not my problem" and I hadn't understood. I confess I was not as calm and polite on the phone with him as I probably ought to have been.
Suddenly I felt faced with the issue of how Hannah was going to travel the six miles or so to work without a car, and at that moment, it was sprinkling outside on top of everything else! In the end, it stopped sprinkling, she rode a bike, she got a little lost and got a flat tire and arrived at work a little late, but she got to work in the end and it was all good. The car place called me at 2:30 to say the car was done and I could come pick it up. I walked the two miles back to get it, thankfully able to walk off some of my frustration with them before I got there, paid them for the work done, and returned home again. But the remainder of my day I felt drained, stressed, broken.
I feel like I lack the resilience that I used to have. I can't laugh things off, and I'm feeling strained and brittle a lot of the time. How much of this is due to the medication? Is there something else that is causing it? I wish I knew.
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