Breaking down

Now I won't pretend that I have ever been the bastion of health. I have long had lungs made of the same stuff at Greg Oden's knee.......wrist........er, whole body I guess. Fragile is the word. I spent the majority of my younger years ping-ponging from rail thin to super chunky depending on whether we had a dog or not and, even at my most hearty, I would never be confused with a runner. My body (lungs) just would not tolerate it. I was always more susceptible to bronchitis and colds and flus were recipes for disaster. However, none of that compares to the relative lack of health I have been experiencing of late.

I know the whys........I am surrounded on a daily basis by the sickest of the sick. I am exposed to dozens of people a day, not including all the associated staff and family members. My job is relatively high stress. I live in a verdant evergreen valley that sends forth a litany of allergenic agents that further tax my overwhelmed system. I cannot seem to find a path that leads to me being upright and mobile for more than a few weeks at a time (my wife may argue even less).

What to do remains the most burning unanswered, and perhaps unanswerable , question. I mean, the economy sucks, my family and friends also live in this toxic-to-me valley and my allergist and doctors all seem a bit lost. Well, I am taking what steps I can.

I am applying to just about any job tangentially related to nursing without the same level of patient contact. I am of course getting rejected more often than a 5 footer driving to the rim on an NBA center. It is dispiriting and disappointing, but not shocking. Take a bad economy, mix liberally with a bunch of RNs with more experience seeking re-entry into full time employ, and the results are pretty much preordained unless I can at least get an interview. That rarely occurs of course without an in. The process continues.

The valley seems unwilling to relent in its assault on my person, so I am doing what is within my meager limits to fight back. Meds, meds, meds. oh yeah.......and more meds. I am often left with the choice of spacey and dried out or red-eyed and runny.........like having to pick between warm PBR or High Life. Allergy shots seem to exasperate not alleviate. Docs just want to try more meds. So, I am seeing a naturopath (and friend) in hopes that she has more answers........or at least different ones. I hope. I hope. I hope.

The only other hope at the moment is a large fortune fortuitously landing upon us leading to my being able to quit working and Tia suddenly and inexplicably pining for life in the high desert. I am not sure which is the more, or less, likely of the two. In the meantime, I repeatedly feel like I am failing Tia.........unable to be the person that she wants because I am not healthy enough to be that person always. Just enough to make it appear to be so, but then violently yanked from beneath us both. So, I will just try to focus on what I can control until they make a bubble I can live and work in. Wish me luck as always. I could use it at the moment.