2022…
Was not my year by any stretch of the imagination.
It started out with me getting the actual Flu. Which sucked because, at the same time, my manager got Covid. I beat her by two whole days. But while she remodeled a bathroom (having none to very mild symptoms) I was miserable for the two weeks being very sick. But hey! At least I got my new stove finally installed!!!!
It took a long time to recover from that. Then I was working to try to finish a quilt for my brother for Christmas (Hey I started in Feb!) and had started back to writing some small things, and thinking I was getting back into the swing of being…normal. I even took my first vacation in years! I may have had to fight tooth and nail for it, but I took it!!!
Then things started downwards. I was stuck on the second block (It was a 10-month block of the month) and remained stuck but steadily working through it (Many, many m-a-n-y seam rips were used…) I was having a steady case of brain fog coming on, as well as the curse of growing older. But the brain fog was steadily creeping up and I finally mentioned it to my doctor, and we were going to do a sleep test once the Quilt Festival was done in November. (What can we say, it was slow but it kept climbing while my energy was failing.) I also was having my stomach issues becoming almost bad as when I had to quit working.
The quilt festival happened, and I got through the mess that it always is. Thought things were getting better, had talked to a gastrologist, who told me sadly, I will just have it all the time and we talked over what I can do to make it less. I had an appointment with him that Monday and for me the Festival ended Saturday here in Houston, but it actually finished on Sunday, but my store is closed that day.
I had woken the following day (Sunday) with SEVERE dry Mouth. Like I burned my tongue white. We did some very minor out-and-about since I had worked that entire prior week as is usual for Quilt Festival (5 10+ hours a day) Mostly picking up some things that were on sale and were either ending that day or were starting. Then I went home that night and went to bed.
I woke up all night in what I thought were panic attacks, now I realized I was having trouble breathing. and they were panic attacks because I couldn’t get air. I woke up on that Monday, having canceled my gastro follow-up, and spent the day coughing cause my tongue was peeling from the burn the day before. I ended up spending the week coughing so hard that I was making myself sick, I had crackling in my breathing, but we were more worried about my breathing.
Cutting to the end of the week, I had long given the decision to my hubby about going to the Drs since I couldn’t decide on anything. But Saturday morning around 2 am I was sick enough that even ginger ale was no longer staying down. I went to wake up hubby, and taking one look at me, jumped into action, and we went to the ER (one of those outside the hospitals). I was checked in, and once the nurse came to get me, she took one look at me, and they all jumped into action.
I had Pneumonia, the virus, and have had it all week, it was hiding under the issues with me burning my tongue from dry mouth. It was the actual virus not caused by the week prior. In fact, I was so low in oxygen, I was immediately admitted and put on oxygen. That particular ER had hospital rooms, and the area around us was having a shortage of hospital rooms, so we stayed there. My Iron levels were VERY low, but because of the stress I had already put on my heart from the hard coughing, they couldn’t give me an iron transfusion. Found out after all this, I was VERY bad and that I am still dealing with issues from it. Like I may have passed away from it.
I kept having panic attacks all Thanksgiving weekend after I was home. I only went back to work in the middle of December when they were sure I was out of the danger zone. (I am still on oxygen, last night I had been so tired I went to sleep and kept waking up needing to breathe.) My boss only had a serious family emergency happen the week I started back and we had to cover for her.
The week that I spent coughing my life away, my computer started with issues. And I got the blue screen of death. I ended up buying a new hard drive but was told that the way it failed it was probably a windows thing. I didn’t get it fixed until December. And then this Sunday it crashed again and I took it to the Geek Squad and had them install the new drive and get it running. Not bothering to recover anything since I had already done a hard drive wipe the first time to get rid of the blue screen. I literally got back last night and spent the night and day putting things back on it.
So as you can see, I had a bad 2022. It was not as bad as some of my fellow writers online. I had ignored none of them, but was dealing with my own issues and trying to get through everything. Hospital bills are not funny even with insurance. My estimated total so far is $20 K for a 4-night stay with also having to pay the cardiologist and all my many dr visits now. IT made me aware of things like Work is a huge drama pool, and as long as I remember that it is a part-time job, it should not matter.
I need to finish my brother’s quilt as well as start some new ones since it is a proven fact it is one of my stress relievers. Well, until my hubby finds a mistake multiple times and the seam ripper comes out over and over. But hey, I am a human being, Mistakes happen. But I plan to give my immediate family quilts for their beds. If they use them or not, is up to them, but they will all get them.
I also play Minecraft, since world-building soothes me (Shocking no one, right?) I also want to finish stories since it pissed me off multiple times that this writer, someone called Kitty in some state, has a few great stories but is not finished.
Yes, I read my own stories. And I sometimes forget I wrote them and then am shocked that it was me that wrote that. I have one story I am trying to finish the entire thing before posting for you guys, But man I do I want to post it!!! But I am trying to write the second story and I am writing and then metaphorically throwing the page away.
So, I will thank God that I am weird enough that I backed my stories everywhere. Or there would be a lot of crying in this post. Since the Drive that they rested in physically, got wiped by accident. So I will need to figure out how to initialize it and get it to store my photos for Photoshop and as a backup for my stories again. I literally just got done loading back up my purchases from iTunes, so I am starting to retrieve my music again.
I am off to see what else I need to load. Again… And hope that this year is going to be better. I already slept through an appointment this morning so there is that…
Be safe out there. The world is freaking crazy and it doesn’t look like it is going to get better any time soon. Also, The website will be taken down and redone, due to $$. If you want it to continue like this, please hit that donate button…
Wendy aka Kitty in AZ (Arizona)->Kittyinaz
