One hell of a week

Photo by: Tim Bindner Photography

I have not written this week because honestly, I could not put thoughts together and even struggled during the week to articulate words.  As the week is reaching an end, I am feeling better, but what a struggle I have had this week.

After last week, I know things could always get worse, but never expected them to.  Last Sunday was the start of a very rough week for me, which piled on to the week before, and honestly was layers of stress and anxiety continuing on from Mom’s death and funeral.

My wife and I drove to my Mom’s house to meet my sister and two of my cousins, and my mother-in-law.  Our plan or goal was to go through my parent’s vast collection of Christmas stuff, which lead through us going room to room and cleaning out drawers, closets, and everything we could get hold of.  My cousins lost their Mom recently and had been through this process and might I say were efficient and took more of the philosophy of me in this process than my sister.  More on that soon.

We began tasks in the master bedroom where two walk-in style closets filled with crates of Christmas decorations.  We set up two card tables, four chairs, and my sister- and mother-in-law sat down.  My cousins had black and white trash bags.  We were told “white is trash and black is donation”.  My mother-in-law and sister also had their perspective areas for stuff they were taking home.  Then the production began.  My cousin Kelly and I began pulling things out of the closet, handing them to Marcie and my sister, who would open them up, display what it was, often followed by a story from my sister (Wanita Jr.), then I would hear “Tim do you want it”?  I answered no. Then I’d hear my other cousin Kim say “Susan”? And if she said “no” then there would be remarks of “trash or donate”?

As my sister’s section and mother-in-law’s section grew and grew, the closets got emptier and emptier.  It was not long before the closets were empty, and both my sister- and mother-in-law had a 6 foot circumference of stuff.  My section could have filled up half a shoe box.

This went on for the next few hours and soon the house cleared out other than furniture.  Marcie and I loaded up an office chair, one crate, a toaster over and headed home.

That evening I began feeling hot and pain in my low back area.  I have experienced kidney stones in the past and this is what I was feeling, or thought I thought.  Sunday night, all day Monday, Monday night, and all day Tuesday, the pain never let up.  I had a low grade fever, very little appetite, and spent so much time racing to the restroom with a deadly urgency to urinate only to have painful and forceful struggles to get a few drops.  This was not a kidney stone, and so I contacted my doctor.  Late Tuesday evening I got a text from her and she shot down my self-diagnosed kidney infection.  Instead of telling me I had prostatitis and was calling in an antibiotic.   AS this was late I could not pick this up to the next day, so I had yet another night of getting up every hour (not exaggerating) to go urinate.

Through this process I developed a severe headache, partly because of the fever, but also dehydration.  I drank as much as I could but knew all that had to come out and the pain was bad.

I had roofers arrive Wednesday at 7:30am and work feet above my head for 12 hours straight.  Did I mention I had a headache?

Relief slowly came on Thursday as I slept in two-hour shifts, again interrupted with trips to the restroom.  Each day from Wednesday on was better than the day before.  I had Friday off work and looked forward to two things; a massage and a therapy appointment.  My neck muscles were so tight it was making my jaw hurt, my head still continued to hurt, I was dizzy from lack of food, lack of sleep and dehydration.

Friday morning I got a text that my massage therapist threw her back out and had to cancel.  I feel bad for her, but I was in agony.  I did however meet with Dr. Erin.  I explained to Dr. Erin what was going on and how I had trouble putting thoughts together and even a few times during the week when saying something to Marcie I forgot words.  She assured me since I could remember enough to tell her what had happened during the week that my loss of words was partly because of sleep deprivation but also my brain was dealing with such anxiety and stress that it was beyond overloaded.  Our talk went well.  I got homework assignments and scheduled another session this Friday.

Friday night I got in bed at 9:30pm and fell asleep.  My fever had broken Thursday after reaching 101.6, I had got an appetite back, and water tasted good again.  I sleep well until 1:30am when right outside my windows the neighbors shot off fireworks.  Keep in mind this is July 18th, not the 3rd, 4th, 5th or 6th.  Eventually they stopped, and I fell back asleep until a nightmare woke me up about 90 minutes later.  The specifics of it are not important, but let’s just say I was shaking, crying and sweating.  I eventually calmed down and slept until around 6:30am.

Saturday my body was weak (partly because I have lost 11 lbs last week), but I felt a ton better.  My brain is clearing up. I am sleeping, and my headache finally left.  Obviously I can process thoughts again, thus writing.

Today is finally Sunday.  My wife went to the lake to swim. My son is in bed and I am laying on the couch after this, listening to Prince, getting me back to mental stability (at least for me). To tell me what to do, how to relate, and how ultimately to feel.  As Prince once said, “Music is real. It affects people; it’s real.” And “I think you’ll always be able to do what your ear tells you.”

Until next time,

Tim