Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Living with a Spouse who has a Chronic Illness/Feeling Overwhelmed

******Disclaimer***** The next few posts are going to be a bit long, sad, real, and depressing...if you are looking for a blog post on Christmas, decorating, baking, and a place where fun, shiny, happy perfect families exist, this is not the place; please move on, and find another blog. Don't say I didn't warn you.


Not gonna lie. These past few weeks have been hard. On so many levels. I won't discuss them all here. Because frankly, not everything about our life needs to be aired for all the world to see. I think I am pretty open, but I don't like to share everything on here. It's not fair to my husband, myself and to my family, and trust me..not fair to you either!

But I will tell you that these last few weeks have been hard. In so many ways. Having a hubby with a chronic illness means that I do a lot of things myself. I deal with car, I do all the errands (ok, I do most of the errands), I buy most of the groceries (although we did go out a week or so ago, and get some together), and of course, I go pretty much everywhere alone. Again, we did go the HG MJ PT1 the other day, which was nice, but this happens VERY rarely!

Honestly, I am so freaking tired. I am doing of dealing with a crap car, tired of doing most everything on my own. I am tired. And done.

***edited/added on Tuesday, Dec 9/14***

Well, I didn't finish complaining the other day, and you know, I just have to finish...lol.

So, where was I? Oh yes...living with a spouse who has a chronic illness on how done I was/felt.

Another thing that really upsets me is that I feel that people don't understand. I think they think that he is faking it. Yes, he probably could push himself more, but honestly, he is IN PAIN! What he has is a real disease (I was going to do a post on what he has, and I still might, but for now, just Google PBC).  It isn't made up. We didn't decide to combine two words and make it a disease. It is a real one. Thankfully (or not) our GP is actually really good at (sort of) diagnosing it, b/c he has three patients with it. There are also other symptoms that go along with PBC; one of them is Raynauds Phenomenon. Basically, he get cold fast. Like, real fast. So he really can't do anything outside for more than a few minutes. Not a lot of people get that. So now, I am trying to deal with every day stuff on my own, AND try to defend my husband to our family and friends. To say I am overwhelmed right now (just in that part of our life ALONE) is a bit of an understatement.

To put it bluntly, I am done. Fed up. Sick and tired. I have my own stuff to deal with. I have work, my own (which seems to be taking a back seat at the moment), a house, and now Christmas to deal with. I didn't even want to put up a tree this year, but we did (we just finished it today..after a week of decorating it, etc). Thankfully, we aren't doing pressies this year. I think we may just buy an electric blanket for ourselves. I don't even want to be around people right now. I went out tonight (more about that in another post), and it was great, but I wasn't really in the mood. I am not having a lot of shifts right now, and even though it sucks money-wise, I am kind of glad, b/c I just need some downtime. Time to take for myself, and to get the house ready for Christmas.

But I am digressing...I guess what I am trying to say is that I am just all worn out. I feel overwhelmed...I don't feel like the good or perfect wife. I haven't gotten caught up on my library magazines, and movies (I had to take the movies back), and I have tons of movies on our PVR (Christmas and otherwise), that are still unwatched. I/we DID spend time catching up on our regular weekly shows the other day. I still have a few more shows to be watched. I haven't read a book in months. I spend A LOT of time on the computer, playing my game, and looking on YT, looking at blogs, etc, so some of the reasons that I haven't done that above said things is that I have been on my laptop WAY TOO much!

But there are other reasons; errands, cleaning, outings (both by-myself coffee dates, and visiting friends, and of course hubby's and my dates), keeping our house clean, and of course, work, and keeping up with family and friends, and whatever else comes our way.

I could go on and on, but I am just being repetitive, and it wouldn't be constructive. So, I am just going to say that frankly, I am just plain burnt and worn out. I hope 2015 will be better ALL around!

When I started this, hubby was having a particularly rough day...this week, he is doing much better. He and I went to the storage to organize some stuff, and he did help me finish the tree (actually we really did do the tree together), and he is busy with the play this week that is this weekend, and he has been doing stuff around the house, so that is VERY helpful!!! Oh yes, and helped a friend LATE last night to put up a light that we found out didn't work. And that was AFTER being at a drama rehearsal..which was after a long day! So, I am very proud of him!! I hope to do some baking tomorrow.

2 comments:

diane said...

I feel your pain. I really do.

diane @ thoughts and shots

The A Team said...

aww...thanks for understanding, and for visiting my blog.

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