April birthday and lifestyle changes

It is time for A Chronic Voice Link Up prompts!

Prompts for April

• Springing
• Grounding
• Luxuriating
• Daunting
• Sustaining

Springing

Spring isn’t a thing here until April and sometimes even April can be ‘finicky’. We just has an impressive March blizzard, for example, so that certainly was Not Spring-like. So April is a sign of Actual Spring. And while it also kicks in allergies and migraine weather, I like Spring because it just flips my mindset out of broody, deep winter.

And I like that I can get out and about for walks again. It is so very hard to exercise with this vertigo I think that is about all I can actually accomplish at this point.

April also happens to be my birthday month, at the end of it anyway. I suspect it will be another pandemic birthday. I suspect we will be in full lockdown again by then. But I find a way to make it a good day anyway. I did last year.

Grounding

I have consistently been doing daily relaxation breathing and meditations. I always did meditation but I wasn’t exactly consistent with it and now I have developed a really good morning routine with it. I think it is vital during these times to manage my stress levels.

I have also been doing a medication change. I have reduced my depression medication by half. And see no increase in depressive symptoms. My doctor said we can assess if I can try going off of it altogether. This is intimidating but I think past due. I do have depression and will always be prone to it becoming significantly more severe. However, since I’m not working I can work on managing it in other ways. And those methods seem to work well enough without working full-time- which increases pain, decreases sleep, and increases stress from both of those and then tanks my mood- a cycle I am very familiar with. I know my pain limits and I know exceeding them is a major risk factor for me. A lesson I have learned the hard way so many times over I do not want to repeat that again

Luxuriating

I will save all the luxuriating for my birthday. I will make that a day of all the things I enjoy Most. Because I know I will not be able to spend it with friends and family so I sort of have to make it a fun day as is.

I was trying to get some basic body maintenance things done before things all shut down again. Like I went and got a prescription put in my Avulux glasses. Got that checked off. And I set myself up a dentist appointment, long overdue now because of the pandemic. But due to a flare-up of severe vertigo for over a week, I wasn’t able to get to that dentist’s appointment and not sure when I will be able to. So that sucked. It is very hard to get things done when my brain really is unpredictable in its level of functionality from day-to-day. From Nill, to Barely, to Mildly. Because I am still waiting on that vestibular clinic appointment. Sigh. So those basic things I wanted to get done would have felt really good to have done. But pandemic. And stupid vertigo.

Daunting

I did get a sleep study done. And I flunked it. Surprise. I’m not sure how I flunked it and won’t know until next week but I find it very likely it is sleep apnea. That is why I asked for it. I found when I took a nap I would wake up just not breathing. Not gasping for air or anything just like- pausing? Anyway, I do a ridiculous amount of weird things in my sleep. It is insane. Sleep apnea though, means I Definitely have decided to quit smoking. It sort of is an obvious thing. I have asthma, which is getting way worse. I have this vertigo that may or may not be Meniere’s Disease, which would Also mean I have to quit smoking (I was only holding off till actual diagnosis but who even knows when that will be, eh?). And now maybe sleep apnea. So really. Come on. Enough already. Just have to get it done.

But quitting smoking is a daunting task. I try. I fail. And repeat.

Sustaining

I am sustaining. That is all I can say at this particular point with my health. Unfortunately. Soon I will be off one of my vertigo medications and I will no long quite be sustaining. I can hope if I make changes in my lifestyle I can keep up but it is hard to say.

See other prompt posts

March
February
January