Adjustments

I took a while off from blogging (several of you dropped me a note to ask if I was okay - thank you!) for a few reasons, which can be summarized in this statement:

I had a bit of an adjustment disorder

(the wikipedia article is pretty good for explanation)

In the two months before Feb 15, we knew that we might need to move, and that my husband might need to find a different job. In the three months between Feb 15 and June 15:

• we found out we would need to move (adjustment to new home)
• we moved - not just into a new home, but from Austin to Houston, which was somewhat unexpected (adjustment to new city)
• I had to figure out how social I could be living closer to my family without trashing myself vertigo-wise (adjustment to changes in social opportunities)
• my husband got a job which required him to be mostly in Austin, even though I was in Houston, so we went from spending almost 24/7 together for two years to being in a long-distance relationship (adjustment in primary support relationship, adjustment in living arrangement logistics, adjustment in finances)
• after a week on the new job, my husband got a better offer for a better job which requires him to frequently be out of state, which required a whole host of logistical adjustments (adjustment in primary support relationship, adjustment in living arrangement logistics, adjustment in finances)
• I started a new anti-vertigo medicine which seemed for a while like it might give me a life free of vertigo crashes, so I significantly ramped up my level of physical and social activity (adjustment in health and activity level)
• I had a severe vertigo crash on the new medicine, which was, to put it mildly, hugely disappointing, and it helped me realize I needed to re-think the level of activity I had been attempting to maintain on the new meds (adjustment in health an activity level)

It was a lot to adjust to. Apparently I needed a bit of time to obsessively play DungeonRaid on my iPhone and wander around Houston dog parks engaging other pet fanatics in long conversations about training tips and breed-specific behaviors.

I am in week six-ish of my "new" horse tranquilizer anti-vertigo medicines, so I will now stop calling them "new" and will heretofore simply refer to them as my medicine. 

I am absolutely delightedly grateful that my meds my have allowed me to go from an activity level of about 40% of my pre-vertigo potential to about 60%. I thought for a while that I was gonna get 80% and I won't lie, I didn't take it particularly well when I found out that 80% was out of reach. 80% would have been nice.

But 60% is a damn fine improvement, and I plan on enjoying the hell out of it, now that I seem to be mostly recovered from the shock of losing the dream of 80%.

The most peculiar change, is what happens when I push it too far: before I get dizzy, I get sleepy, as if the sedation effects of the horse tranquilizers kick into high gear, accompanied by an intense craving for baked sweet goods like donuts and cupcakes. If I don't rest immediately, I'm out of commission for a while with dizziness and nausea. Well, maybe the nausea is caused by convenience-store-quality pastries, like plastic-wrapped honey buns and powdered sugar donuts. It's hard to say, really.

But I am a lucky lucky woman indeed: I can do more, my recovery rest periods are shorter, and I am more productive overall.

Well, as long as I don't reinstall DungeonRaid...