That's a Wrap on April Recap

Sup y'all!  The month of April was quite the whirlwind yet also seemed to drag a bit in parts.  Mother Nature was off her mood levelers or something because you never knew if you were getting snow, 80 degrees and blinding sunshine, hail, tornadoes, gale force wind and the threat of rain pretty much all month.  I suppose I'm somewhat grateful for the warning about the impending tornado we were supposed to get early in the month as it lit a fire under my butt to get the space under the stairs available for retreat.  This forced me to quickly move the stuff from the pantry shelves I'd procrastinated switching to the Brimnes IKEA pantries.  When I saw the auxiliary shelf was now clear, I could start the task of moving stuff from the back shelves to that shelf where things would be more accessible and when the back shelves were open I could begin the task of moving Mom's stuff from under the stairs higher up to the back shelves.  (You follow all of that?! 😜)  Having those tasks done allowed me to start going through boxes that never made it upstairs after last March's reno.  You know what I found?  A box from July 2022's reno!!  So yeah, while the basement isn't sparkling clean yet, one projected weather event set off a positive chain reaction to deal with things that my grief addled brain couldn't conceive of starting on my own.

Speaking of which, we're heading into month nine.  Her stone finally came in right after Easter which was a relief.  Nothing ever really feels settled until that bittersweet memorial is in its permanent place.  Then you look at it and say "okay Mom, joke's over."  The worst part?  I can't even visit her grave in peace... she passed right across the street.  The way we have to approach the cemetery is the same way we took every day to visit her and my fight or flight kicks in just as it did then.  I have to close my eyes as we approach and look the other way out the window inside so I don't see it.  If I do see it, have you ever seen The Crow?  (The original...the only one that should've ever been made given a man gave his life for the movie.)  This scene where Eric "gifts" Top Dollar all of the pain that Shelley went through before she died?   I see that with Mom... every time I see where it ended.  It is exactly like that.  I can't stop it.  I can't control it.  It just comes like a jackal ripping at every fiber of me to remind me of her suffering and she was the last person who deserved to go out like that.  But there it is, like a demonic shadow just over my shoulder when all I want to do is visit with her and grandma in peace.  People claim it will go away with time but it hasn't.  The only thing that has changed is my ability to not go into an external break in front of the Mr over it and usually wait until he's asleep to let it out.  So watch that clip (but stop it at 2:46 before he hits the ground) to get an idea of the mental anguish because it's literally a carbon copy of the flashes of PTSD but with Mom.  (Just in case anyone was fooled into thinking my humor or snarky posts meant I was "better.")  So April has been a whirlwind of progress, processing and lots of tears and attacks to attempt to breathe my way through.

It's also been about the Mr attempting to get his varicose veins taken care of.  That whole ordeal began just as Mom's time was coming to an end.  He started with the ablation and then it was a wait and see for a few months to see if his veins shrunk enough to hopefully qualify for sclerotherapy.  They seemed to so he went ahead with it and after a month found out they needed stronger stuff because the baseline didn't work.  He goes back next month to see if everything took which is nerve wracking until he gets the all clear.  By the end of the month, I was getting an evaluation of my own from his doctor.  I've always had poor circulation in my legs, heaviness that isn't just my weight, itching by the ankles and over the past few years, a disturbing pattern of discoloration by the ankles and tops of feet.  A quick search showed I needed to get it taken care of ASAP so I made the appointment.  What a year to decide to go with the high deductible plan.  🙄  But we just reached our deductible so now it should be just copays.

Despite keeping up with most of the new to us weight loss plan we started in February, I lost nothing for a month.  I pulled back on some habits because there was just too much going on and it got very frustrating.  I have been doing everything I can to get my legs better so I can incorporate more movement into my day but on paper, I should've been losing 1-2 lbs per week.  It starts to make you think of drastic measures.  Last week, I lost a rogue 4 lbs and Saturday another pound so I guess just in the nick of time I lost 5 lbs for the month.  I got my protein back up as well as water so who knows if that was direct correlation or not.

Needless to say I am begging May to play nice and give us a respite from the madness.  (Too late...my vein stuff is set up towards the end of the month as well as the new diagnosis I told you about last week.)  I'm hoping I can capitalize on a bit of motivation but I know some other stuff that may be a stress fest is on the horizon so I need to find a way to balance and prioritize my mental health.  Not to mention oh, you know, needing to decide what to do with the stairs, rip out old balusters and install new ones, scrape, stain and rehang the handrail to the basement, paint and caulk the baseboards, put up new patio fence slats, rip out old bathroom floor (that inspired Mom to do hers the same) and install new as well as a new toilet.  You know...easy stuff that isn't even a part of the aforementioned stress fest.  I should be (more) insane by the Fall! 🤪

How was your April?

====================
Get posts sent straight to your inbox on Follow It. Some posts may contain affiliate links that help keep this blog running at no cost to you.  See the Disclaimer page for more info. All posts copyright Success Along the Weigh. All rights reserved.