{"id":7498,"date":"2020-01-28T16:20:43","date_gmt":"2020-01-28T21:20:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dsavannah.com\/blog\/?p=7498"},"modified":"2020-02-18T17:28:52","modified_gmt":"2020-02-18T22:28:52","slug":"looking-back-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dsavannah.com\/blog\/index.php\/looking-back-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Looking back (again)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Classical<\/a>

*laugh-sob*
Yup. And even harder when you have cognitive issues! And delete things inadvertently!<\/p><\/div>\n

dSavannah note:<\/b><\/span> This blog post is very very late (13 days, to be exact!), because of a couple reasons: 1) on Sat, January 11, thanks to my infinite brain fog, I deleted the 1,100 or so words I had written for this post, but then 2) the next day, with a huge amount of cognitive effort, I managed to recover it, but I wasn’t able to finish it; then 3) as I wrote in the mini post I published on the 15th and updated on the 16th, Important US disability issue needs your action NOW!<\/a>, I have been very not well.<\/p>\n

I’ve been extremely crashed, and I’m still pretty foggy; my brain is jumbled and my eyes are burning, but as I told one of my dear readers, I can’t really save this post for February. So, here you are. Please forgive me for any typos or things that don’t make sense.<\/p>\n

And please, please, go read my last post<\/a> if you haven’t already, read the proposed new rule on the Federal Register<\/a> that would require proving disability every two years, read Matthew Cortland, Esq.’s<\/a> guide to this issue on his Patreon<\/a>, and submit your comments<\/b><\/a> against the new rules before the updated<\/strong> deadline of January 31, 2020.<\/strong><\/p>\n

#NoSocialSecurityCuts!<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you might remember that the title of my January 2019 post (yes, just a year and a couple weeks ago) was “Looking back, looking ahead<\/a>“.<\/p>\n

Part of the reason for the similarity is that January is always a time of reflection – after all, it’s the start of a new year (at least, that’s what our culture tells us, but time is continuous and really just a construct, and concepts like “months” and “years” were developed to help us make sense of the world … But I digress. Per usual.).<\/p>\n

Also, I’ve always been pretty horrible at writing titles or even short things (as I often say, there’s a reason I named my blog “dSavannah Rambles<\/em>“!) – in college, I always made my assistant editor on the newspaper write the headlines. AND I acted like I was doing her a favor. (Maybe I was? Maybe it was a skill she developed while I never really did. Hmmm … )<\/p>\n

\"Image

MEep artist and poet Christina Baltais<\/a> created a series of book art with titles like this. Gut wrenching.<\/p><\/div>\n

But the real reason for the title is that as a person with chronic illnesses that will never ever go away, it’s really really difficult to look ahead. As the art shows, our Dreams and Plans may be big, but Life with M.E. is very small.<\/p>\n

The only things on my 2020 calendar, besides birthdays (I like to send real mail, especially to my MEeps!, tho I have not sent any at all so far this year) are eight doctor appointments. (And I’ve already been to three. Many more will be added. For instance, I see my pain doctor once a month, and those are scheduled a month out.)<\/p>\n

I can’t plan anything. Ever. My health always, always ruins any plans. (Even, as demonstrated, publishing a blog post.)<\/p>\n

One particularly sad example: I planned on and really wanted to go to Christmas family dinner, but nope. This year, I woke up with a raging, horrible, painful migraine, overall body pain, and weakness such that I could barely move, so I missed it. Again. For the third year in a row.<\/p>\n

I also didn’t send out a single holiday card, and only one gift (thus far, anyway! A couple things might wing their way out in time for Flag Day…)<\/p>\n

Of course, looking back isn’t much better either. For reasons (that are too in depth to get into), I started keeping track of the main things that happen in my life.<\/p>\n

The following happened to me during the 365 days of 2019:<\/strong><\/h3>\n