Thank you for sharing! My husband leads the food pantry at our church. We do outreach the second Saturday of the month. We will do a special Christmas out reach on the 22nd. We will give out hams, roasts, etc along with the usual bags of food.
I am an Activity Director for an adult day health for Alzheimer's. My position includes supervision and directing both CNAs as well as Act. assistants.I am on the move all day, I set my on schedule, so if I am having a really bad day I can retreat to my desk. I love my job but I fear I will not be able to do this until 65.
Dianne
I used to be a desk clerk at a major hotel 13 years ago. It was a killer, as I was on my feet more than not. I also have a brain AVM & had a Lumbar fusion last year. After years of back pain & chronic pain of fibro. I worked the 3-11PM shift, which wasn't too hard. A lot of times, I would sit in the office doing computer work, until someone came in. The security guard would call me or I could see from the office the counter. That was back when we could smoke in the office. The pain was bad, but I got through it. What was hard was the "fibro fog" & the fatigue which would sneak up on me! This would make my employers think I was a high monster. Any job is hard. I had to quit that job because I was experiencing PTSD associated with my house fire. I lost practically everything, including my sanity. Three years after that I married my husband, then lost him to cancer two years later. It seems that anywhere you work, nobody wants to accomodate disabilities, even with the ADA. My husband's office was ver accomodating of his disability. He was out of the office more than he was there, before the dx of Ca. (diagnosis of cancer) Thirty years ago I was a paramedic. I was in my mid twenties. I think that I stroked out after bringing a pt. into the hospital in 100 degree heat. I collapsed on the next stretcher. That was scary. I think it was the heat. Our ambulance didn't have air! It was broken. (I worked for a "Throw & Go" company!
Hi
I work as a Student Support Worker, working with students of Aboriginal and African descent and their families. To make school a positive experience for them, support academically and provide opportunities to explore and share their culture.
Ii has been a struggle to find the right balance, but I have been fortunate in the fact that I have flexbility in how I do my job. When I am feeling well, I am more energetic, and mobile. When I am having a flare, I am at my desk more, but take that time to catch up on my paperwork.
Chris, please let me extend to you my sympathy on the loss of your husband. How sad to be newly married and then lose the person whom you love dearly.
Your life hasn't been easy. And I cannot believe that you had to carry someone in 100 degree heat! Although I guess that paramedics do do that, don't they? Did you really have a stroke? In your mid-20's? That must have been terrifying! And what the heck, no a/c in the ambulance??? That's obscene.
I find that when I'm exhausted, my tolerance for the pain just plummets, and I feel it much more clearly. Did you find that to be true with your fibro fog and fatigue?
I'm glad that you've joined us, Chris. Yours is a sad but interesting story. We are all such survivors!
Hugs to you,
Petunia
What an incredible gift for them to give to people in need. Wow! That's great. Please accept my thanks for doing this work. In this economy, I'm sure that quite a few people need to utilize it.
Hi Dianne,
I was an Activity Director too but for a small place and had to do all of the pushing and transport of the patients, plus everything else. It pushed me over the fibro edge, so to speak. My hat is off to you for doing what you do; it is one hard job! I didn't have much time to sit and do my paperwork, it was all on the go go, without assistants.
Have you thought about doing social work for the elderly if you need to change careers? You would need more education but it would be less physical than your current job.
Petunia
Wow, Waterwaves, I had no idea that you were a writer. And a published one at that. Congratulations to you; it's a difficult feat to achieve. I'm having difficulty even getting agents to read the synopsis I send to them.
You have an interesting group of friends! I'd love to know people who were interested in the writing field. It'd be so much fun to get together and gather feedback, hash ideas back and forth, talk shop, etc. Creative people are a unique bunch and it's so energizing to hang out with them. My sis knew a guy who was interested in robotics (building them,) photography, animation, etc., when we lived in Maine. It was a gas to get together. I wish I knew how to produce animation; I've written a humorous mystery/fantasy about a snarky leprechaun named Shamus and I'd love to bring him to life.
Oops, I'm sorry, very much off-topic. I lost myself there for a minute. Waterwaves, if you or GYN would like to contact me to talk shop more, feel free to email me at: ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■.
Hi Debriana,
I was saddened to hear of your situation, especially in regards to your job. It's awful to lose a job when you've held it for 24 long years. No wonder you're so upset and scared.
I see that others have offered you some very helpful suggestions and I hope you read them all carefully and consider them.
First off, your depression seems to be overwhelming you right now. I think it would help you a lot to talk to your doctor about increasing your anti-depressant, if he thinks it's appropriate. I've been in your shoes and done just that and it really made a world of difference for me. I think it would help you out a lot too.
As for your pain, maybe you need to be on a higher dosage of your meds. I know it helped me. I was put on a very low dose of Lyrica which didn't do much good in reducing my pain. A higher dose did make a difference.
Some things that might be causing you additional pain could be hypermobility or else an auto-immune illness. Have you been tested for the latter or do you have members of the family with them? They also often occur concurrently with fibro (don't know about CFS.) Meanwhile, hypermobility is the ability to move your joints or a joint beyond the normal range. People who have it also seem to suffer from more pain than fibro alone, due to the constant overextension of the joint.
You DO need a doctor who will help you get disability. If your doctor truly refuses, then perhaps it's time to get another doc ASAP. Have you expressed to your current doc how terrible you feel and how badly your mood is affected as a result? You do need immediate help.
Please also call 1-800-273-TALK if you seriously feel like ending things. Living on that extra day may give you the strength or the resources to carry on. People here will try to help you and I feel that people in other agencies will as well, if they know how badly you feel. Please don't give up. It takes strength to ask for help but it's a good strength and people do listen. People do care, Debriana.
Hugs to you,
Petunia
Hi GYN,
Wow, four novels started? I'd be so muddled trying to keep up with them! But I'm delighted to hear that you're working on them, and being as I write mysteries, your thriller especially interests me. It's a good genre to work in, since its growing. I don't know much about the Christian-based thrillers or novels but I would think you'd have a good-sized audience for your books. What's your thriller about, if you don't mind talking about it? Did you base it on real life?
Getting writing exposure is a great way to build up your writing resume and it sounds like you're on your way.
Me, I write humorous mysteries/fantasies. I finished one and have started a sequel, except I'm just too exhausted to do much work on it due to my job. I've also started another novel but have the same issue, obviously.
Keep writing as well. You never know what the end result may be and it's a lot of fun to do it, as well. Plus it impresses the socks off of people when you tell them that you've written a book (even if it's not published, hee hee!)
Wow, Chris, thank you for sharing. You are a good writer. So sorry about your husband. I will add you to my prayer list.
Thank you for sharing. I bet you get to meet all kinds of neat people.
Hey congrats on finishing and having a sequal! That is awesome! There is a fairly known published author who is a female Christien "Steven King" thriller writer. Dang, I cannot remember who told me about her! Ugh my memory! That is so awesome that you have finished projects. It seems to me once you start writing, you feel better.
I may be able to give you some tips on finding groups of writers to meet with in your area. It depends on the genre you write on what groups to join. It helps to join the yahoo groups and facebook pages of your favorite authors. A lot of the writers I know started with online publishing and ebooks. Then when they had examples of their work in ebook form, they had something to show agents and print publishers. Some of the ebook publishing companies even publish print copies of their more popular books. Also, make comments on writing blogs. You can meet other writers that way. Some people even self publish their ebooks and sell them through a web site. It's not hard to make a pdf file. Angela Knight is an example of an author who started with ebooks then was picked up by one of the big print publishers. She's been a NYT bestselling author several times. If you have a facebook page, look through my friends list and friend any authors, review sites, publishers etc that you might be interested in. I think Mojocastle Press publishes a lot of different genres and they should be on my page as well as some others. I'm WatersWaves on fb. I would be happy to talk shop about books and publishing.
hugs
Susan W ak
Petunia, since you like humor you may like the books of J Morgan. He writes romance but it's not explicit at all. It's sweet romance but he's hilarious. Jay is my brother from another mother and I think he's an awesome writer. Desert Breeze has two pages of free reads. His "Love a Little, Stake a Little" is the last one on the first page here.
http://stores.desertbreezepublishing.com/-strse-Free!--Free!--Free!/Categories.bok
I think you do feel better once you start writing. It takes your mind off of the pain/takes you away from the pain. (I'm reminded of that cheesy old commercial, "Calgon takes me awaaaaaay!")
Well, see, there you go, there must be a call for Christian thrillers if there is a female Steven King of the genre. I took a quick google search and found this site. It has several articles about Christian fiction so maybe they would be of some use to you?
http://voices.yahoo.com/top-five-christian-fiction-novels-2007-762115.html?cat=38
Thanks for your congrats, GYN. It took me a good year to write the book and edit it. I'd love to write more but pain and fatigue are stopping me. I hope you keep at it and get something published.
Thanks for this and your other messag, Waterwaves. I'll write more tomorrow but am getting completely gobsmacked from exhaustion.
Thank you, Angel.
It really is a good program. We keep an eye on the people and I have actually called emergency services on a few occasions. And they are also tied in with other social service programs in my area. It's just a great service in general. Although I have to admit that I oftentimes think that I'm in worse physical shape than some of the people receiving the meals and may well end up as a recipient fairly soon if things keep going as they are...
Wow, Sheila, what a well researched response you provided for Graveyard!
Thanks Rachel, did you see the discussion I posted about earning money from home? I had to do all the research for myself years ago, so I just shared it.