Category: Jeanne Marie

 

I don’t often write about this, but I have severe degenerative disk disease and several creative forms of arthritis including the master bone bender, rheumatoid arthritis. The reasons I don’t write about it are simple.

I believe what you think will be, so I refuse to dwell on my health issues and I refuse to be handicapped by fear of the future. I focus on what I can still do and it’s so amazing to see how much there is left that I can still do.

However, I have been on a rough journey since last summer, beginning with moving from Florida last July to New England. We have moved so many times that I didn’t realize that we were getting older and much less spry. My husband  carried boxes out to the U-Haul trailer for me and I packed every single available space in the RV. We were both exhausted by the time the trip began. We had numerous delays in the closing on the house we sold in Florida and with the house we bought in New Hampshire. The dates did not match up close together and we ended up having to camp in our RV for a month.

Although I had days and days of adventure and fun on the road trip and I loved camping in our RV on a stunning mountain for a month, the stress of learning my way around an unfamiliar area, again, was tiring. I loved the month we spent camping on the mountain but…my husband hated it.
He hated the small space and he was cramped with our two dogs on top of us, although as far as I know, our two Chihuahua’s are always on top of us no matter how much room we have available.

I think the biggest stress factor for me was finding a doctor. When we finally moved into the house, I found a doctor’s group and they refused to see me without my medical records. They would not see me without my records and they would not accept the ones I had in my hand, my complete medical records printed from my doctor’s portal. They looked through them and then handed them back to me.
“You might have forged them,” they said.

Months went by with this medical group claiming that they never got my medical records from Florida.
I began to run out of several important medications. When I called my Florida doctor’s office, they said that they had mailed my records…twice.

I went back to the medical center to request an appointment again. They went through my hand-held records and my prescription list (for the second time) at the front desk and they told me that I probably didn’t even meet their requirements to be accepted as a patient. (It was the only medical center in our little town.)

So, after a humiliating verbal dance in front of several patients and staff members, the head nurse admitted that they wouldn’t accept me as a patient because I took pain medication.

Talking about my personal history in front of anyone was a direct violation of the Hipaa Law, but I just walked away. Humiliated and so mad I couldn’t breathe. That’s how bullies win and although I wish I had turned her in, at least to her boss, I didn’t.

On the plus side, although I still had severe pain from rheumatoid arthritis and degenerative disk disease, I had by now weaned myself off a fifteen-year legal pain pill habit because I realized that I was going to end up withdrawing cold turkey if I didn’t.

It wasn’t easy, but I had a deep belief that God was in control and I gave this problem to Him. Every day. Strange things happened. My pain level went down, not up as I changed over to Tylenol.

That was last October and I immediately began to feel better, my head felt clearer and I had less pain.
I still have pain, but it’s much more manageable and I firmly believe that everything happens for a reason. I am better off without the pain pills and I would have never thought that would be the case.

Meanwhile, I found a doctor almost an hour away and waited a month for an appointment. When I saw the doctor, she told me that I needed to see three different specialists because she didn’t prescribe medicines, she was a homeopathic doctor. Would have been nice if they had explained that when I asked for a primary care physician appointment.

In the weeks that followed, I left my husband and my house and moved almost three hours away.
He helped me buy a small mobile home near my sister in Maine.
We had problems before the move so combining the stress of moving and the extreme changes in my body chemistry, well I think that I just had myself a good old-fashioned nervous breakdown. Or so my mom would say. 

I have been alone since October.
I have learned many things since I have been alone. Here are just a few.
I have definitely learned how much my husband loves me, even after thirty-five years together.
I have learned that our good memories are powerful.
I have learned that no matter how old your kids are…they never want to see their parents split-up.
I have learned that I enjoy taking care of myself and that I like being alone.

It’s sad, but we have talked more since we split-up than we ever did when we sat together every night and a make-up is hopefully in our future. 

My husband says that thirty-three years of marriage are worth fighting for and he has a point.
Still, I say; right now…I’m just tired of fighting.

The most important things that I have learned are that I will be okay, single or married and as always, I am in His hands and He knows where I need to be, even when I don’t have a clue.

Jeanne Marie, 2016