{"id":4707,"date":"2018-04-25T08:27:25","date_gmt":"2018-04-25T15:27:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/?p=4707"},"modified":"2018-04-25T08:27:48","modified_gmt":"2018-04-25T15:27:48","slug":"epic-fail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/?p=4707","title":{"rendered":"Epic Fail"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-4708\" src=\"http:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/Spring-POTS-225x300.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" data-id=\"4708\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/Spring-POTS-225x300.png 225w, https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/Spring-POTS-768x1024.png 768w, https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/Spring-POTS.png 1152w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/>I could say yesterday was a hard POTS day, because it WAS. This week has seen some ugly POTSholes. But in truth it&#8217;s always something, is it not?<\/p>\n<p>So making excuses for my roadblock moments doesn&#8217;t turn a bad situation into a reasonable outcome &#8230; Or acceptable, or appropriate, or logical or graceful. All things my conditioned mind still holds in high regard.<\/p>\n<p>Long not so shaggy dog story short &#8230; My escrow company was super kind to set up a mobile notary for my deed signature last night. Disabled and house bound provides significant challenges even in this expanding technology millennium.<\/p>\n<p>I explained that I would need them to call before they left, in the event my body was pitching a fit and I would need to reschedule. Because saying someone will be there in three hours is a wide time frame for my narrow windows of opportunity.<\/p>\n<p>When I received the call, the notary said she was in her car and 40 minutes out. So I lay down and rested best I could. I gave my daughter my phone when she texted &#8220;I&#8217;m here&#8221; and asked that she get her set up and ready for me to sign before I attempted to stand and deliver.<\/p>\n<p>Minutes later, not hearing my daughter beckon &#8230; I got up and started looking around the house. It&#8217;s a big house. I called for Trish, loudly several times &#8230; Inside and out. For able bodied people this would have been a non issue &#8230; But speaking and standing is hard for me under easy circumstances.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-4710\" src=\"http:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/DaysUCantStand-300x300.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" data-id=\"4710\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/DaysUCantStand-300x300.png 300w, https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/DaysUCantStand-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/DaysUCantStand-768x768.png 768w, https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/DaysUCantStand-1024x1024.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/DaysUCantStand-50x50.png 50w, https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/DaysUCantStand.png 1440w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>Turns out the driver was at my old property .. the vacant one for sale. She offered to drive up to our new place &#8230; But by then my shaking was uncontrollable, my heart was pounding and catching my breath was a challenge. All of it .. more than I could muster in the orthostatic intolerance of the moment. And I gave Trish the call to cancel. Much to the dismay of the dear woman who had driven all that way.<\/p>\n<p>As it was, it took me the better part of an hour to collect my POTS pieces. Was I also reptilian brain &#8230; Yes most definitely. It was a complete package, all tips and perks included cruise.<\/p>\n<p>Fact is, for decades now my batting average for making a meeting is at best 50%. I do what I can to stack the odds &#8230; But it seems my oddities get the best of me at the most inconvenient times.<\/p>\n<p>And in truth, I had left the dinner table the night before with an odd mast cell reaction. I&#8217;ve posted woes-me-BP memes just yesterday WHILE I was flat out having a bad flare. Cause my body shuts down on a no-moments-notice all the time.<\/p>\n<p>But it&#8217;s THESE times, when people depended on me to get something done at a set time and date &#8230; When I feel so bitter and full of self loathing that I couldda shouldda handled it better.<\/p>\n<p>My POTS peeps will empathize others may wonder why, my father will forgive me because I&#8217;ve been lucky in life to have one parent who loves me unconditionally. But at the end of a hard days night this is just what Life looks like. A person asked me recently &#8230; Is it panic or POTS that makes things hard to handle? It reminds me of that time my assistant director came into my office late one afternoon and said &#8230; People were talking and wanted to know if my illness was physical or mental. I remember feeling my heart skip a beat and a flash of heat shot thru my arms &#8230; But I turned slowly in my special order reclining lounge office chair with the built in elevated foot rest and responded with a calm smile &#8220;Is there a difference?&#8221;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I spent decades believing I could &#8220;do more&#8221; if I focused my work on my anxiety response. CBT, EMDR, SE, EFT and the rest of alphabet soup with the finest MDs, PhDs, LCMFT, RNs there are. And I do believe my persistence allowed me to see clearly what things in my life were not within the locus of my control.&nbsp; Ast I never did make a dent in the do-better part of the picture. Because for me it isn&#8217;t a chicken or the egg dilemma. It&#8217;s an omelet that is comprised of all the flavors, all the textures all the aromas of a five star kitchen.<\/p>\n<p>For me this is what Life looks like having it all. It means, my schedule is unreliable, my actions inconvenient, I am certainly a burden to be accommodated or ignored as best my inner circle of support can muster in the moment. It&#8217;s hard on me, on my family, my friends, my doctors and all of the shoppers, delivery people, service persons and strangers who cross my path &#8230; if not also my orthostatic anger. I am THAT.<\/p>\n<p>In my younger days, I may have created a chart with tasks and goals of trying again, doing more, pushing myself further into an ablebody&#8217;s mold of how someone is suppose to think, act, accomplish. I would have held on to hope that I&#8217;d do better if I worked harder at it, my family would love me if I stepped up my game, my mother would speak to me &#8230; It&#8217;s a long web of painful patterns.<\/p>\n<p>But now .. as I look back on years of &#8220;failure&#8221; and my statistical brain says its just doesn&#8217;t look probable. A new tact is not what is needed. Doing &#8220;more&#8221; won&#8217;t lead to a larger life. And I suspect that crushes some hopes and dreams &#8230; if not also my own, but those close to me who hold out hope that I won&#8217;t always be so broken.<\/p>\n<p>But the odds are that I will still miss about 50% of targeted goals &#8230; even the big, can&#8217;t miss, really important, if you love me you would, agendas. Because for whatever reason, this is the best that this total package can do. There&#8217;s simply not much more to do with it. Other than apologize to those I have impinged upon. Thank those who supported me. And collect my bearings as best I can and take the next step forward or backward because Life continues to move. For today, it will be finding another notary &#8230; who is closer by and I can explain the type of flexible schedule that I need to get this deed done.<\/p>\n<p>Exhale. Was it a fail last night? Yep. On many categories of culpability. Do I need to look good and make excuses for myself? Oh sure, my habit brain still likes to try and paint a pretty picture, but I&#8217;m also open enough to see and say that I get my whackadoo cattywonkus crazy and own that as much as I wear my POTS heart on my sleeve. I am ALL THAT. There&#8217;s not string to pull upon that unravels the intertwined fabric of my limiting life that still feels as full and blessed as possible.&nbsp; And though things may never change, anything is still possible in an Epic Tale.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I could say yesterday was a hard POTS day, because it WAS. This week has<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dharma"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4707"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4707\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4712,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4707\/revisions\/4712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}