Another beautiful image made by the wonderful Vlad.
Some of you asked me in private what's up with the isolation complaints.
Well it's like this; we lived in California from 1999 - 2001, fall out from the 911 disaster forced us back to Europe and my W. favorite was France, mine was Scotland. I did foresee big problems because neither of us was fluent in French, fluent enough to read legal papers and deal with authorities. But W. promised to work on that and that it would be his responsibility to deal with them. We also promised each other that if it wasn't working out after 3 years we would leave and move on.
In France we found a lovely home in a very small and rural town in Bretagne/Brittany. Lovely but isolated. First thing we learned was that after being used to living in California it was difficult to make friends in the northern part of France. I especially write the Northern part because obviously friends who live in the South did not have the same problems we had and did make some nice French friends.
For me I think the problem for the Bretagne people were the thousands of Brits who move to the area and did very little to integrate into the French way of life. The French would consider them very rude with their demands of speaking English and not observing the French working/free hours. While we were trying they did not knew the difference between a Dutch couple or a English couple.
Because I took care of lot of the move details and organizing my health was gong backwards with huge steps, it also didn't help that I could not get the medication I used in CA. French rely for a big part on their own produced medications and do not import much. Doctors refused to read my medical files and wanted to start testing all over, didn't believe my diagnose. All in all I became really sick real quick. because of the medication I use I can not drive and while living so rural does have it perks it also isolates you from the rest of the world. W. worked from home and emerged himself in that. Starting to work at 9:00 or 9:30 and worked till 8:00 PM than dinner, some tv and back to his work.
Needless to say that this wasn't working out for me at all, after 3 years of trying to find some decent medical help and to make friends and have a social life I called it a quits. When Intel and Google contacted W. with a job offer we accepted with both hands.
I was so excited and dreamt all day about making new friends, finally do all those womanly things, like shopping, gossiping, chatting, having a cuppa or a glass of wine together!
Finally doctors who believed that I was ill and get my medication back, I dreamt of going back to school doing cooking classes, painting, volunteer work, driving my care everywhere!
Oh to finally have a life again!
However also this time the organization of the move was on my shoulders and I overdid it.
The first 2 weeks here were fine and than I started fainting everywhere, I contracted another complication, NeuroCardiogenic Syncope( Fainting because of sudden drop in blood pressure) and Cardiacmyopathy, deterioration of the function of the heart muscle.
I could not go out anymore by myself, it was too dangerous. I could fall on the street and get hurt, I fainted in stores, while waiting for the bus and driving was out of the question too.
And while I did find a wonderful physician and am receiving treatment now after 3 years I'm still at the same spot as where I was when living in France.
I can't go out to make friends, I can't do a course because my cognitive function is also affected, short term memory is horrible, everything I have learned today will I have to do over again tomorrow. Besides that an hour in the company of strangers wears me totally out, I will be exhausted and have to stay in bed for at least 3 to 4 days to recover.
No new friends means, not many people you can call for help, a drive to the store or a dr. visit. I have to rely for anything on W., every little thing I have to ask for. Pick up my medication, books from the library, women items from the drugstore etc. it's embarrassing and degrading.
I know he doesn't mind but I do, I would love to feel like a woman for once again. With nice clothes and some perfume, have my nails done and look and feel great.
I'm making some progress though, it's just baby steps. I now have a electric scooter that I can ride to the library when I feel good enough, but further than that there is no store of coffee shop in our neighborhood because when we choose this location we didn't expect that I would become house bound, if we had only suspected it we would have moved to the inner city where I would have had access to the stores and café's right away. We have been thinking of moving to another location, especially when W. is on conferences I'm all by myself with no access to the basic elements of life. But with this housing slump there is no way that it's going to happen any time soon. Our neighbors home was on the market for 2 years and they just sold in last week.
And now with the flu I have to stay at home even more, I can not go out in big public gatherings like a market or a festival like the one that is going on at the moment in Portland, the Rose Festival. It drives me up with wall sometimes and I'm ready to peel of the wall paper with my nails. Sometimes weeks go by without speaking to another human being than my husband. it's a good thing I'm an introvert, an extrovert person would prolly have killed herself by now ;-)
So that's why I'm isolated and yes it is lonely, at times it feels like my spirit has died and I don't recognize the person I have become. If I didn't have my electronic gadgets that let me connect to the Internet, my window to the world I would go insane. I hate what this disease does to me and how it limits the way I want to live my life.
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Some of you asked me in private what's up with the isolation complaints.
Well it's like this; we lived in California from 1999 - 2001, fall out from the 911 disaster forced us back to Europe and my W. favorite was France, mine was Scotland. I did foresee big problems because neither of us was fluent in French, fluent enough to read legal papers and deal with authorities. But W. promised to work on that and that it would be his responsibility to deal with them. We also promised each other that if it wasn't working out after 3 years we would leave and move on.
In France we found a lovely home in a very small and rural town in Bretagne/Brittany. Lovely but isolated. First thing we learned was that after being used to living in California it was difficult to make friends in the northern part of France. I especially write the Northern part because obviously friends who live in the South did not have the same problems we had and did make some nice French friends.
For me I think the problem for the Bretagne people were the thousands of Brits who move to the area and did very little to integrate into the French way of life. The French would consider them very rude with their demands of speaking English and not observing the French working/free hours. While we were trying they did not knew the difference between a Dutch couple or a English couple.
Because I took care of lot of the move details and organizing my health was gong backwards with huge steps, it also didn't help that I could not get the medication I used in CA. French rely for a big part on their own produced medications and do not import much. Doctors refused to read my medical files and wanted to start testing all over, didn't believe my diagnose. All in all I became really sick real quick. because of the medication I use I can not drive and while living so rural does have it perks it also isolates you from the rest of the world. W. worked from home and emerged himself in that. Starting to work at 9:00 or 9:30 and worked till 8:00 PM than dinner, some tv and back to his work.
Needless to say that this wasn't working out for me at all, after 3 years of trying to find some decent medical help and to make friends and have a social life I called it a quits. When Intel and Google contacted W. with a job offer we accepted with both hands.
I was so excited and dreamt all day about making new friends, finally do all those womanly things, like shopping, gossiping, chatting, having a cuppa or a glass of wine together!
Finally doctors who believed that I was ill and get my medication back, I dreamt of going back to school doing cooking classes, painting, volunteer work, driving my care everywhere!
Oh to finally have a life again!
However also this time the organization of the move was on my shoulders and I overdid it.
The first 2 weeks here were fine and than I started fainting everywhere, I contracted another complication, NeuroCardiogenic Syncope( Fainting because of sudden drop in blood pressure) and Cardiacmyopathy, deterioration of the function of the heart muscle.
I could not go out anymore by myself, it was too dangerous. I could fall on the street and get hurt, I fainted in stores, while waiting for the bus and driving was out of the question too.
And while I did find a wonderful physician and am receiving treatment now after 3 years I'm still at the same spot as where I was when living in France.
I can't go out to make friends, I can't do a course because my cognitive function is also affected, short term memory is horrible, everything I have learned today will I have to do over again tomorrow. Besides that an hour in the company of strangers wears me totally out, I will be exhausted and have to stay in bed for at least 3 to 4 days to recover.
No new friends means, not many people you can call for help, a drive to the store or a dr. visit. I have to rely for anything on W., every little thing I have to ask for. Pick up my medication, books from the library, women items from the drugstore etc. it's embarrassing and degrading.
I know he doesn't mind but I do, I would love to feel like a woman for once again. With nice clothes and some perfume, have my nails done and look and feel great.
I'm making some progress though, it's just baby steps. I now have a electric scooter that I can ride to the library when I feel good enough, but further than that there is no store of coffee shop in our neighborhood because when we choose this location we didn't expect that I would become house bound, if we had only suspected it we would have moved to the inner city where I would have had access to the stores and café's right away. We have been thinking of moving to another location, especially when W. is on conferences I'm all by myself with no access to the basic elements of life. But with this housing slump there is no way that it's going to happen any time soon. Our neighbors home was on the market for 2 years and they just sold in last week.
And now with the flu I have to stay at home even more, I can not go out in big public gatherings like a market or a festival like the one that is going on at the moment in Portland, the Rose Festival. It drives me up with wall sometimes and I'm ready to peel of the wall paper with my nails. Sometimes weeks go by without speaking to another human being than my husband. it's a good thing I'm an introvert, an extrovert person would prolly have killed herself by now ;-)
So that's why I'm isolated and yes it is lonely, at times it feels like my spirit has died and I don't recognize the person I have become. If I didn't have my electronic gadgets that let me connect to the Internet, my window to the world I would go insane. I hate what this disease does to me and how it limits the way I want to live my life.
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