Today is the gear-up, preparation day for The Appointments tomorrow.

As I was drifting off to sleep last night, I realized that I am very, very anxious about what is going to transpire tomorrow with the rheumatologist. The psychologist? I could care less. Well, okay, that's not entirely true. The psych will have control over my antidepressant, I'm sure, and that has definitely had an impact on my overall functioning. However, if I were given the choice between my antidepressant and my pain meds… I think we all know which way I'd go. Antidepressants, duh! (I kid, I kid!)

I just… I mean… I'm terrified, y'all. Just so petrified. So, so anxious that my symptoms will be downplayed again, that I'll be told I'm prone to exaggeration again, that my coping mechanisms will be called into question again (without offering any assistance or anything), that my pain won't be taken seriously again, and that it's going to be harder than filling a sieve with Jello to get adequate pain management again, and that I will just end up spending another year getting sicker and sicker and in more and more pain without anyone in the medical community bothering to figure out what's really going on. It's like… this could either be really good or really bad. I'm terrified. I don't know what to expect, but my experience with this stuff so far does not have me exactly resting at ease.

But… I will do my best to come prepared with all the information and documentation that I can to make this as smooth and painless as possible.

Besides gathering all my supplies for tomorrow, I'm hoping to be able to do some more cleaning and tidying of the house. Will that actually happen? I'm uncertain. The pain is pretty persistent and gnawing today, so we'll see. C helped me clean yesterday, mopping the floor after I swept as well as helping me make the bed after I washed all the linens. That has taken a tremendous load off of my mind. I've been bothered by the dirtiness of the floor for weeks now, but unable to do the task myself. Then, of course, I ran out of meds and wasn't doing a damn thing, so mopping was out of the question. Today, I'd like to get the dishes done (since I went through pretty much every single dish while sick, because doing dishes? Hah. Right.) and clean the bathrooms. Dusting would be nice, too, as well as putting away the laundry I did yesterday. If I only get one "cleaning" thing done today, though, it's gotta be the dishes. Well, that and my laundry. How I wish I could do it all in one blazing, glorious, Spring Cleaning type day! To think that I used to HATE the weekends because Mom would want to get all the cleaning that had been put off throughout the week done on Sunday, and of course we were obligated to help. Now I'd give anything to be able to take a day and just clean the house really well. Of course, I try to employ the method that Mom never quite got the hang of, which is tidying up throughout the day and week so it doesn't all pile up and necessitate an all-or-nothing cleaning binge. I'm sure it's harder with kids, but it's also pretty damn hard with chronic pain, too.

So that's the plan for today. Eat, clean, and be merry, for tomorrow I may want to die.

Oh, and quick side note of great importance? The local ren faire is next weekend! Whoop whoop! I'm so excited. I look forward to this all year.

I got a notification last night  that I had received a comment on an older post of mine. I LOVE getting comments (kind of feels like when you get a letter in the mail, you know?), and this one stirred me pretty particularly. Cherryblossoms wrote to me on the post "God won't protect you… or will he?" from May of 2012. This is what she said:

"Hi cassandra, i see ur blog was written a while ago and i just gotta say it REALLY spoke to me. I have not faced abuse but emotionally i resonate with all your struggle in trusting God. I've had a chronic illness for a while and last year was really...really hard. Suicidal at times. And in retrospect i can certainly see where God provided for me but like....exactly like u said, i didnt feel protected. and then i thought well...was i promised to be protected? and if i'm not how am I supposed to trust someone who doesnt seem to bother to protect me, if He could? I mean i sure wouldnt trust another person who did that to me, stand by and do nothing when maybe they couldve done something. And if it was all to teach me a lesson....well okay...did my suffering have to be that overwhelmingly painful just for me to learn something? like really? and im still not sure about what i learned. i have vague ideas. mostly i just think i learned how to be real pissed off all the time. and like u i sit here and think, im such a bad christian! i feel the same. how do i tell people jesus loves them when i still feel hurt for feeling abandoned? Anyway, i wanna know if , since time has passed since this post...if u've found wisdom or solace or anything u can offer me. hopefully u see this comment lol. anyway, take care u sound like a lovely woman nonetheless < 3"

I, of course, had to reply…

"Life with a chronic illness (or more than one) is hard. Period. And I think that some emotions are universal, regardless of abused/not abused, etc. Have you ever seen The Princess Bride? One of my favorite lines from that movie has always been when Wesley, under the guise of the Dread Pirate Roberts, tells Buttercup, "Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something."

I can't say that I've come up with any answers… or wisdom… or solace. In fact, I don't even consider myself to be a Christian any longer. I just couldn't reconcile my experience with the facts presented in the Bible. I may come back to it someday, I can't really say… but at this point, I'm more of a quasi-Bhuddist/skeptic/deist/agnostic. Still figuring it all out. What I HAVE decided is that God wasn't responsible for my pain, I don't think. My abusers made the choice to be world class jerks, and the responsibility of my pain lies with them. Could God have stopped it? Maybe. Did he? Not that I'm aware of. But, basically, I've learned to live my life from the inner strength that I possess within myself, and the strength and hope offered to me by the people I've surrounded myself with. 

Now that I'm an adult, I can choose who I let into my life for the most part. I had no choice as a child or young adult whether to let those painful, toxic people into my life. So I surround myself with people that will feed my soul, and I stand amazed at the fact that they seem to feel the same way about me. I am learning to own my own strength, light, and love, rather than dissembling and deferring with "humility" and giving God all the credit. You say that your last year was really hard, and you were suicidal at times. (If you read some of my more recent posts, you'll see that I've been there at times lately as well.) But… you're still here. You chose to fight, to hang on, to believe in hope (maybe), and it's that strength within you that will carry you. Find hope where you can and where it suits you best. If that's in church and a belief in God, then more power to you. I have found, though, for myself… I have found that I lead a happier, more peaceful, more fulfilled and strong and hopeful life as a non-believer than I ever did as a Christian. I know that's blasphemous to some people, but it's the truth. It's safe to say that I'm a better, more authentic person now than I have ever been before in my life.

I have no idea if that addresses any of the questions floating around in your heart, but it's all I've got to offer. Thank you for the comment-- it really brightened an otherwise crappy evening (feeling VERY poorly, physically), and I hope to see you around. Oh, and thank you for the compliment :) I hope you see this!"

I've held back from outright stating some of this stuff, because honestly… I'm afraid to catch flak for my new beliefs (or lack of them, I should say). Since I spent so many years immersed in an intensely Christian culture, an overwhelming majority of my relationships and friendships are with people who are staunch Adventists and who feel that everyone should be an Adventist. If you're not, you're lost. And I really, really don't want to deal with the stigma or evangelistic efforts that would come with such an admission. I mean, if we're being honest here, it's not a state secret. It's pretty plain from my Facebook page that I've changed my stance on a lot of things, without my ever having to say anything. But I want to be seen as me, as a person, as Cassandra… not as my beliefs. Not as my religious affiliation. 

Did I tell you that when I "came out" to E about my lack of Christianity, she seriously considered asking me to resign? Why? Because our organization is faith-based, and we, the leaders, must set the example. I personally think that the organization is stronger for having a diversity of beliefs and religious convictions, as the population that we are trying to reach doesn't all fit into the standard Protestant mold. It's unfair to expect them to, and I think it's unfair to require the staff to all have the same beliefs and life choices. I mean, I totally respect other's beliefs. I have no problems with you if you're Christian, Pagan, Muslim, Greek Orthodox, whatever. It doesn't matter to me. As long as you're a good person (wherever the catalyst for that comes from) and you treat others with fairness and respect, we're good. I could wish that the same attitude were applied to me. I don't want to be discriminated against for my lack of Christianity.

And, honestly… I'm afraid. I'm afraid to lose friends. I'm afraid of being judged, of being attacked, of being the target of some campaign to change how I feel and think and believe. I have my reasons for my choices, and it feels so very invalidating for someone to assume that they know better and that if I only listened to them I would see that I am being a fool and need to come around to their point of view. I also hate the pity that is reserved for "the lost". Please, please, please… just treat me like a human being, yeah? My bestie J is a marvelous example of how the relationship between believers and non-believers should be. She sees me as a person, not an evangelistic target. We discuss religion and God and exchange thoughts, theories, viewpoints, etc., but at the end of the day we both respect each other's choices as valid and reasonable and know that the other has perfectly legitimate thoughts and feelings that went into those choices. My other friend H is a good example of this as well. It is kind of sad, though, that I find myself so appreciative of interactions that bear the mark of basic respect. I wish it were a more common thing, and that I didn't find myself living in fear of the Christian community, or the conservative SDA community, to be more specific.

I found out from my primary care physician yesterday (whom I love!) that on the last batch of blood work they did, I tested positive for a screening of auto-immune disorder (ANA). What does that mean? Well, this link explains it further, but basically it means that there's some auto-immune involvement, and they're giving me a referral to a rheumatologist to figure out exactly what's going on. (It was the development of the joint pain that really clued her in.)

Specifics? Well, I got ANA positive, speckled pattern, with increased titers of 1:320. According to that website (and my doctor's info), that means that I have increased levels of antinuclear antibodies in my blood. As far as the speckled pattern goes, well... that and the fact that she did an ANA test in the first place... yeah. It's associated with lupus. The dread disease that keeps coming up again and again lately.

Oh dear God, please... not lupus... I don't want lupus. (It looks so matter of fact typed out, but the truth is that I'm fighting back tears.)

Still... here's hoping it's *just* fibromyalgia... Check out this article on the link between low cortisol levels (which I DEFINITELY have) and fibromyalgia. (Unfortunately, the article also points out that FM is often concurrent with... you guess it... lupus. And other auto-immune diseases.)

Anyway, I'm going back to bed here in a minute, but I wanted to get that off my chest. Today's going to be busy, and yesterday kicked my butt, so I went to bed early... but I woke up at 3:30 a.m., and again at 5. Couldn't get back to sleep, so I figured I'd get up and do my math homework, which I didn't do yesterday because of all the butt-kicking and early bedtimes that were going on. I know myself, and if I wake up without getting enough sleep, just an hour or so later, I'll be overcome with my sleep-deprivation symptoms: nausea, headache, a particular "flavor" of fatigue that I can't really explain (it only shows up when I need more sleep), vision problems, etc. Sure enough, the symptoms paraded through, right on time, so I'm ready to hit the hay again for a couple of hours. A nice little nap to kick off the day right :)

Also, I asked the doctor about possibly getting on disability. She said it's definitely a possibility, and seeing these specialists will strengthen my case, give me documented proof, and we'll be able to go from there. Right now, it would be more like "hearsay". So I'll wait a while, but it may happen... particularly if this turns out to be something chronic. Who knows... it may at least help me get on food stamps, yeah?

Also, had some crazy weird vivid dreams last night. The one closest to waking was my wedding. (There was some other one about a young boy on a plane that ended up having to bail because the plane was crashing, and he landed in the Swiss Alps in winter and he and the other guy who made it with him survived and made it back to civilization somehow.) For some reason, we had set up the ceremony so that I didn't have to walk down the aisle until halfway through. So I was there, watching the rest of the wedding party walk down the aisle (C was shirtless and barefoot in his gym shorts, I might add! And they all did this weird "ring around the rosy"/game of tag thing until they tired of it and dashed down the aisle helter-skelter), and then I realized while holding my bouquet, "Oh! I need to get ready! I'm not dressed, my hair's not done, I'm not wearing any makeup, nothing!"

So I'm running around, trying to find my wedding dress (for some reason we were having the ceremony at the SDA church in town, and all the people I was talking to were actual church members!), and then realized that it hadn't come in the mail yet. But it was supposed to be there, that day at the latest. So I grab the phone book, and I'm dialing UPS to see if they have my package as I run outside to the mailbox, and guess what's sitting on the ground? A box, with my name on it! It was my dress, except that now I had this wrinkled wedding dress with no way to steam it, but I put it on anyway.

Fortunately, my hair was already "waved" (because I used the three-barrel curler on my hair yesterday, so it carried over into my dream), but I had to put on my makeup in a hurry, so I applied my mascara and while that was drying I was trying to figure out which shoes I wanted to wear. Do I want the black boots? Or do I want the silver heels that I bought just for the wedding? Or do I want this random pair of cute white heels that I've never seen before? Decisions, decisions... In the end, the silver heels were the most comfortable, and I did spend 8 dollars on them, sooooo....

Oh, it was a mess.

I woke up before anything else went down, thankfully!

But seriously? On the actual wedding day, I'm not going to wait until the ceremony is starting to get ready. (This probably just has to do with my buying my dress the other day and feeling like I'm losing control. Also, C pointed out astutely that I'm not at all used to making major purchases.)